Tom Nairn is an expert on globalisation, nationalism, British institutions and Scotland. He is professor of globalisation at the Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His many books include Global Matrix: Nationalism, Globalism and State- terrorism (2005), The Enchanted Glass: Britain and its monarchy (1994) and After Britain (2000).

Recent articles

In a response to Judith Herrin's new history, the example of Byzantium inspires some contemporary reflections from Tom Nairn in Melbourne's Arena magazine, republished with kind permission.

The map of world statehood is creatively fissuring, as globalisation accentuates difference and breeds self-confident ambition among its underlings and marginals. The process, says Tom Nairn's extraordinary Edinburgh Lecture, heralds the retreat of the "body-builders' club" of would-be great nations and the "emergence of new, smaller communities of will and purpose - the nations of a new and deeply different age"

Anthony Barnett, pioneering constitutional reformer and founder of openDemocracy, is 65. Tom Nairn, a lifelong ally, pays intellectual respects and looks forward.

Britain’s prime-minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown is making an offer the people – not least in England - must refuse, says Tom Nairn.